Heart Shaped Gun
by belle.nisce
Summary: Hey boy you're bleeding for nothing... Reno's never made any promises, and in the end it never matters to her. Oneshot.


**A/N: **Wasn't sure what I was thinking when I wrote this (what else is new?). Anyway, this just came up when I heard the song. Reno instantly sprang to my mind, and I just needed another character. It's a bit eerie-out-of-the-dewy-mist, but that's the way I wanted it to be. Plus I wrote it in about an hour, so my bad if there's any grammar/tense mistakes.  
**Disclaimer: **Song is Heart Shaped Gun by Augustana.

* * *

She was a prom queen who never made it home. Jewel of the slums, her sharp violet eyes had always set her apart from everybody else. Those crystalline eyes, they always said, one look and you'd know she was from some other place. She didn't ever belong in the grunge and the dirt - it was almost as if she was an ethereal alien accidentally crashed onto Midgar with Jenova, and she was purely untouchable, setting back the misty fog that haunted everybody else with her almost-afterglow dewy skin.

And once upon a time, he made promises to her that stung both of their throats and echoed out into the empty junkyard as he trailed her pale face with shivering kisses. It was so incredibly out of place, this commonplace boy in a dirty white t-shirt tangled up with the pride of Midgar's slums in a rusty yellow car. They didn't fit together at all, and the only thing that matched was their red hair - and even that was just a stretch, his being a violent flaming red, while hers was a deeper auburn. But that didn't matter to either of them, for in the swirling twilight, their hair blended together perfectly just like the rest of their entertwined limbs.

_Sky black and blue,  
blue turn to red  
I'm in love with you girl,  
but I might as well be dead_

It was his ambition that attracted her to him, if nothing else. That fiery blaze in his eyes as he pressed his cheek against hers, erasing the mildewy smell of the places they rolled around in. I'm not staying, he would whisper in her ear as she shuddered against him, I'm going to get filthy rich and live at the fucking top of Midgar. I'm going to do it, he would say, and she would pretend not to hear him. Then I don't love you, Reno, she would hiss back at him, I never have. And he, left with nothing to say, would steal her breath from her body, noticing that no matter how hard he pressed against her, none of the rank mud from his own skin ever smeared onto hers. He never said he would come back for her, only insisted that he was destined for great things. Perhaps she never believed him - or maybe she never needed to. Maybe he never needed her for anything other than a vent to tell all his dreams that he could never find the breath to tell anybody else before spilling his essence into her as well.

_But I ain't a fool,  
and honey you're just a kid,  
with a bottle of wine,  
and a pack of cigarettes_

Either way, she seemed to fade into the background like everybody else before her in his life like a yellowed photograph when he stumbled his way into the gang and forgot about everything. Soon he was drenched from head to toe with the blood of others seeping through his thin skin into his innards. New and Improved Boy only visited her once a week or so, and she could smell the sharp, metallic tang of the dark red blood on him even when he had just washed himself. He would tell her she'd have to be gentle with him, because some of the blood on him was his own. And she wouldn't cry, or wince, or even think twice about it - because, as she liked to tell herself when he went away to potential suicide and left her naked in the car, she didn't love the gangly teenager simply called Reno. She never had. Gathering her clothes and wearily donning them to face a new day again, she would bite her lip so hard she tasted her blood as she repeated that over and over in her head.

_Hey boy, you're bleeding for nothing,  
it's hard to miss when you're shooting a heart shaped gun.  
You'll slit your skin to find freedom,  
you'll kill yourself to find anything at all _

And after a while, she couldn't tell if the intermingled blood when they were together was his or her own. It came to an end when he took a stab wound to the gut, and landed in the makeshift hospital for a month. She stood outside of the broken-down shack every day, in her torn blue blouse that he had ripped a fairytale ago in his passionate fervor when he still had some left for her. She stood outside and willed herself to go in, but always ended up leaving again. When she finally found the reluctant sting to go, the nurse told her he had already left a week ago. She didn't try to find him, and he never came to see her, either. From then on, she kept her doors locked because he didn't come tapping at it in the middle of the night anymore.

_So lock all the doors,  
and put the child to rest,  
slip on down your skirt babe,  
c'mon, lower down your dress._

-o-o-o-

Before he was recruited by Shinra and disappeared altogether, she thought he came to see her, once, the night before he left for his 'destiny' he'd always told her about. Her memory that night was bleary and fuzzed from the bottles of vodka she had downed in her desperation to find a substitute. She had toppled around the house with an exploding headache, trying to rub out the violet in her so-called pretty eyes, when she saw a figure staring at her amidst the swirling gray of the night down the road. He had red hair, but she wasn't sure if it was Reno, and when she tried to run to him, she stopped herself at the corner and tripped instead, skinning both her knees. And she felt the familiar burning kisses down her neck like liquid poison, and wasn't sure why she didn't try to stop him, and the next morning she woke in bed. She decided that it had all been a dream before she pulled aside the covers and found her scabbed knees.

_Cuz I got the keys  
straight to your heart,  
I can't afford a ring, and it's tearin' you apart.  
The castle wall's been breached, babe,  
I'm kissin' down your neck,  
and you're just throwin' rocks, and slippin' into bed._

She imagined that he must have achieved what he wanted, watching her very home get blown to pieces before her very eyes by the boy she had once not-loved. She wondered why she wasn't among the thousands that died if he didn't want her anymore. He surely would've wanted to kill her himself if he wasn't going to come back for her. Reno of the Turks now had new friends, a new job, and a new life without her. Hey, she was just the 'jewel of the slums', and as pretty as the now-dead neighbors had made her out to be, she wasn't sure that she compared to the exotic beauties he must have had by now.

-o-o-o-

And one day he did come back. She awoke to find him picking his away amongst the rubble, twisting his head every which way like he wanted to find something... or somebody. She felt a surge in her worn-down heart again, and tried to run, but he spotted her first in the middle of the ruin and destruction, like a diamond amid the coal. He had grown out his hair, she thought, and he was taller, now, and not so skinny. He had morphed into a carefree adult full of filled promise while she was left the broken teenager in the dust. I don't know him anymore, she thought, and turned away and said no.

_Well the money's slow, and the cancer rolls,  
got your baby due in July.  
Well, if I can fake it, yea, the cash could take our troubles,  
our worries,  
our problems... all away._

And they found themselves in their old rusted car that had somehow managed to survive the bombing, as if it was some sort of sign that he was going to come back all along, no matter what he did or didn't say. And she felt the stinging sensation all along her skin, now foreign to her, sharp and full of hurt as skin rubbed against skin. I can't stay long, he said, they're expecting me back soon. And she, like she was used to doing by now, pretended not to hear him. It doesn't matter, she said back as he moved into her, not sure if the tears that sprang to her eyes was from physical or emotional pain, I don't love you. He seemed to take that as a reassurance, and kissed her with a smile upon his swollen lips, digging his hands deep into the knots of her hair, murmuring, I knew you didn't.

He left her in the car, and she knew that this was the last time she would see him because he wouldn't come back again to take her up to that gloried top floor of Midgar. He never could. She felt as though she needed to justify herself, and screamed after him, the words scalding her lips as she said them, Reno, I've never loved you! He paused in his step and turned back, an uncertain look in his blue eyes - the first she'd ever seen - before choking out, darling, I've never loved you either. The tone in his voice betrayed him, shrieking just the opposite even as they floated in the breeze back to her, the dust drifting up behind him in his wake, and she wasn't sure if the tears she found on her skin were his... or her own.

In the end, it never mattered.

_Hey boy, you're bleedin for nothin',  
it's hard to breathe when you're shootin' a heart shaped gun.  
You'll slit your skin to find freedom,  
you'll kill yourself to find anything, find anything at all..._

_--Finis._


End file.
